Sources: Apple has moved its modem engineering unit to its in-house hardware technology group led by Johny Srouji, Apple's SVP of hardware technologies
Stephen Nellis / Reuters :
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2019 report is the opening move of what became a decade-long arc: Apple quietly shifting modem design out of its procurement-driven orbit and into Johny Srouji's hardware technologies group, the same organization behind its custom silicon. At the time it read as an organizational footnote; in hindsight it was the structural precondition for everything that followed.
Srouji confirmed the destination in late 2020, telling staff Apple had begun building its own cellular modem to replace Qualcomm chips ([[a:960920]]), and Bloomberg's 2023 deep-dive framed the modem as one pillar of a broader quest to bring displays, batteries, and camera sensors in-house ([[a:846453]]). The 2019 reorg is where that pipeline was plumbed.
First-order effects
- Modem engineers now report into Srouji's chip-design organization rather than a separate unit, putting cellular radio on the same development track as Apple's in-house processors.
- Qualcomm, whose modems powered iPhones at the time, gains a customer that is visibly organizing itself to stop needing one.
Second-order effects
- Once the modem program matured enough for Srouji to confirm it publicly in 2020, Apple's supplier leverage shifted: every negotiation with Qualcomm now carried a credible exit path.
- The success of housing modem work inside the hardware technologies group set the template for pulling other bought-in components — wireless chips, displays, batteries, sensors — onto the same internal track.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Apple's hardware organization consolidates around a single component-engineering engine: by 2026 Srouji had formalized this into a combined hardware engineering and hardware technologies division organized across five key areas ([[a:1167360]]), with silicon teams integrated directly into product creation.
- For the broader industry, the move is an early data point in the decoupling of flagship device makers from merchant chip vendors — the buyer becoming the designer, and the vendor losing its largest account.
The trend: Apple has spent the years since this reorg converting bought-in radio and component expertise into in-house design under one hardware chief, turning supplier relationships into transition timelines.